


but we're all strange

by imperfectkreis



Series: Lambert/Aiden fics [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (both are mild by canon standards), Anal Sex, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Secret Identity, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:01:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29539971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: Lambert asks Aiden to winter at Kaer Morhen. There's only the rub of his identity as a Cat.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)
Series: Lambert/Aiden fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/861888
Comments: 18
Kudos: 102





	but we're all strange

**Author's Note:**

> This fic should work roughly in the same timeline as my previous canon-verse Lambert/Aiden fic "be alive while I'm here." Some bits and pieces are repurposed from shorter snippet pieces found in "and they won't go."

The two witchers should part ways while the weather is still warm.

It is the fourth year of Aiden and Lambert’s acquaintance, their friendship. A little less than four years since their friendship in truth became more than that. Though Lambert isn’t sure the date. He is sure that Aiden would chide him for being too sentimental, for so much as counting the years, and the teasing would be much worse if he knew the exact date.

They should say their goodbyes while there is still ample time for Lambert to return to Kaer Morhen before first snow. Enough time for Aiden to return to his lodgings in Novigrad, or wherever the fuck it is he hides until the thaw. Aiden would call Lambert sentimental too for even thinking about how he might spend his time when they’re apart.

Maybe being sentimental isn’t such a terrible thing.

“Come with me,” Lambert forces between his teeth. Perhaps if he looks suitably cross about offering the invitation, Aiden won’t tease him for it.

Aiden, in his grating, sing-song voice, asks, naive as can be, “where?”

They’re traveling together, just to the next little village over with a notice board and certain to have a drowner problem (isn’t it always drowners?) They’re leading their mounts at the moment, giving the horses a break and enjoying the low-hanging, fiery sunset while they can. Even on foot, they’ll make it to the village before the sun dips below the horizon line. 

While it’s too early in the Autumn to leave the path, they’ve normally left each other by this time of year. At least, that is the pattern that they’ve tread.

“Don’t be an arse,” Lambert fumbles under his breath. “Home, for the winter.”

Aiden abruptly stops. His horse, Violet, misses her master’s command to halt and steps forward twice more before realizing that Aiden isn’t advancing. She looks back at him with a sort of familiar affection that Lambert has never witnessed from any of his horses. His current mare at least listens to him when he too comes to a stop, several meters further down the road.

“You’ve lost your mind,” Aiden stares at him, his hand fisted tight around Violet’s reins. “You’ve lost your bleeding mind.” With that, Aiden’s shocked expression devolves into hysterical laughter, bubbling up so dark and thunderous that it makes Lambert wince to hear it. Aiden doubles over, clutching his waist as his raucous amusement gives way to another, equally intense bout of emotion. Lambert barely registers that Aiden is sobbing now into his cupped hands.

Lambert doesn’t wish to think about the stories he’s heard from his elder brothers. How the Cat’s chemicals drive them all mad, sooner or later. What is intended to dull and soothe the all too human ecstasies and agonies in Witchers’ temperaments instead makes the Cats volatile and cruel. Lambert has witnessed nothing of the sort from his friend, the intensity of his emotions notwithstanding. Yes, Aiden feels things with such beautiful clarity that it has supported the sneaking suspicion Lambert always harbored that the mutations do little, if anything, to stifle their emotions. Instead, any repression the Wolves might experience is a result of socialization, not sciences.

Even now, in his sudden outburst, Aiden appears to Lambert to be entirely sane, though that edge of cruelty, so rarely directed towards Lambert himself, is sharply present. 

“You know who I am, Wolf?” Aiden sneers once he has a sliver more of composure. He shows his teeth, canines artificially sharp from filing. As if he’s fooling anyone. “Of course you’re do,” he backs off when Lambert doesn’t respond, simply staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Which is why I care for you.” Just as soon as the mania overtook Aiden, it’s gone now. “You know and don’t care. But your brothers will not be the same.”

Lambert knows Aiden is referring to the Tournament. Though he has long suspected that, like himself, Aiden is too young to have taken part. Geralt was there, but never speaks of it. Neither does Vesemir. Perhaps because they believe it unworthy of note. What few, scattered Cats remain are rarely encountered. Except, of course, for Aiden.

It is true, Lambert’s brothers do not know. But the way he sees it, they don’t have to know.

“We don’t tell them you’re a Cat,” Lambert blurts out. A shoddy plan taking shape. “We find you a different medallion. They’re not the type to question.”

Aiden doesn’t laugh at him a second time, instead tilting his head to one side. His hair has come somewhat loose from the ribbon he uses to tie it back in pretty bows, more suitable for a maiden than a Witcher. He likes velvet, he likes suede, he likes lace. “They will only think that I killed a good Witcher to steal from him.”

“There is no such thing as a good Witcher,” Lambert corrects.

They’re losing daylight now. When they finally get on their way, they’ll need to ride to make it to the village. Now, though, Lambert can’t stomach the idea of being around so many humans. Perhaps they’ll rest along the side of the road. Or perhaps Aiden will leave him now, as he should have left weeks ago. As he never should have followed.

“You know I can’t come, Lambert.” Aiden takes one, sure step towards Lambert, closing some of the distance between them, but not enough of it. Though they’ve been together since mid-summer, when they found one another again, by chance, they have only secured enough privacy to be intimate a handful of times. This will not be one of those moments. They are too exposed here, too vulnerable. “Please don’t ask again.”

Aiden doesn’t make him promise, and Lambert believes that is permission enough to ask again next year.

—

Another week together passes, another week Lambert should have spent in the direction of Kaer Morhen, instead of chasing behind his friend, vaguely in the direction of Novigrad. At least the notion that Aiden has someplace marginally dry with walls around him to retreat to in the Winter gives Lambert some small comfort. Better than living in a cave or some shit until the thaw. At least Lambert assumes that’s why they’re making looping, indirect progress towards the city.

“Isn’t it about time you head ‘home,’” Aiden mocks, though there is little venom in his voice. They’re still four, maybe five days out of Novigrad. Even if Lambert parted with Aiden now, there are sure to be frigid days on his way back to the keep.

“And what of you?” Lambert isn’t actually brave enough to ask Aiden to come with him. At least, not a second time in the same year. Next year. He’ll ask again next year.

Aiden shrugs from atop Violet. He needs to do little to lead her now. Her footing is sure, though Lambert questions how she might know their destination. “Don’t worry about me.”

Lambert hates, fucking hates, when Aiden turns stoic. When he turns cold. Aiden is meant to be too talkative and bright for his own good. Prattling on about nothing at all important and grating on Lambert’s nerves. If Lambert wanted to spend time with some prick who didn’t feel much like sharing his train of thought, he’d spend his days trotting behind one of his brothers.

“Who said I was fucking worried?” Lambert spits.

That’s at least enough to get Aiden to smile. His laughter this time is soft and warm, and Lambert tries to not think too much about how he wants to wrap this feeling around himself and live inside of it. Because it’s not something they can do. At least not in the time they have along the path. But safely behind Kaer Morhen’s walls? 

“You know, we could fuck,” Lambert offers little else in terms of context.

Aiden raises one eyebrow, “Oh, could we?”

—

Lambert follows Aiden all the way to Novigrad, despite his better judgement. In the morning, he’ll leave. His arrival home will be late. Perhaps late enough to give his brothers a good scare. That is, if they actually care enough to worry about if he’s alive or dead. Lambert thinks that he might care about that. That he might want them to worry. He’s not sure they would, though.

“You’re tight,” Lambert pants into the back of Aiden’s neck. They have to be quiet. The family of elves that live below Aiden’s attic room don’t deserve to listen to their filth.

Aiden bites into the tanned flesh of his own arm to try and muffle his moans as Lambert pushes into him again. The drag of Lambert’s cock inside him is torturously slow for them both. Going any faster isn’t an option. They figured that much out after the first couple of thrusts, when the bedframe hit the wall with a force hard enough to shake the thin walls.

The candles are out, but it doesn’t matter. Lambert’s pupils open wide to let more light in. He can’t see Aiden’s face from this angle, but he thinks that his friend’s eyes might be closed. 

“Whose fault is that?” Aiden hisses below him, before letting out another yelp.

It’s both of their faults, really, that they didn’t make time for this earlier, when the weather was still warm and the air sweet. They’d shared an exchange of hands in their bedrolls, touched enough to feel the increasingly familiar warmth of each other’s skin. More than once, their lips met under the cover of darkness, if not a roof over their heads. But there never seemed to be time for this.

Right now, this feels so fucking good that Lambert wants to wish himself back to their first days together. The sex-addled part of his mind wants to spend his time engaged in nothing other than this, the hot press of their bodies together, the low, rumbling pleasure that Aiden exhales with every languid thrust, the tightness in their muscles as they both try to hold on a bit longer. They won’t get another chance at this for months, because Aiden is too stubborn to even try. And the bitterest core of Lambert’s being hates Aiden for his cowardice. Even if the better part of him feels...something else.

With a grace befitting his status as a Cat, Aiden finds enough leverage to roll them both over in the moment of Lambert’s distraction. The fact that Aiden could even find the strength to toss him over knocks the wind out of Lambert’s lungs. Just a moment ago Lambert could have sworn that Aiden was already too fucked-out to move a muscle, much less throw Lambert’s considerable weight around. Though they are similar in height, Aiden is some twenty pounds lighter. Doesn’t make much difference though, Lambert is still put on his back, getting his bearings just quick enough to catch the pure glee on Aiden’s face as he looms over him, hands planted firmly in the mattress on either side of Lambert’s head.

Aiden tisks at him, “shame, you left yourself so open, vulnerable,” he practically purrs.

Lambert has already had about enough of this teasing, his cock still flushed and hard between his legs, brushing up against the dark hair on Aiden’s taut stomach. If Aiden wants to take him instead, Lambert isn’t opposed in the slightest. More than anything, he just wants to chase some satisfaction, however he can get it.

With a wicked grin, Aiden brings his lips to Lambert’s, licking into his open mouth. Satisfied now with plundering Lambert’s mouth, Aiden lifts his hips, finding the angle that pleases him the most before sinking back down on Lambert’s cockhead. It’s Lambert who moans against Aiden’s now-smirking lips. A silent taunt meant to make Lambert’s blood boil for certain.

And yet, though Lambert can feel the start of a frustrated sort of anger kindling in his chest, their rutting mellows to something else. Something that never ceases to chill Lambert to the bone.

He knows he is fond of Aiden. He’s not daft. Aiden is the best man Lambert has ever known. And he’s certain that he enjoys the feeling of his cock up Aiden’s ass. He’ll even concede he’s come to appreciate the reverse position as well, as much as he protested when they began...this.

Neither of these realizations are particularly bothersome from Lambert’s perspective. At least not anymore. No, the feeling he can’t shake, the thing he doesn’t wish to consider all that deeply, is what it means to be fond of the person he enjoys fucking. Too close to a silly love story. Too close to a dream. And too far away from the reality of Lambert’s existence. 

“Stay with me, Wolf,” Aiden teases, tapping his open palm against Lambert’s cheek. Not near with enough force to be called a slap, but with enough threat in it that Lambert knows if he loses focus again there will be consequences.

Gritting his teeth together, Lambert takes hold of Aiden’s hips in both hands. He has enough strength to hold his friend back, keep him from thrusting down to find his satisfaction. And Aiden lets a delicious little whine slip out from behind filed teeth, finally showing Lambert that this has got him fucked up too.

Aiden tries to push down again. Futile. Lambert grins at his success, “Impatient, Cat?”

“Always, for you,” and the way Aiden tilts his head, dark hair loose from his topknot and falling over his shoulder, letting Lambert watch with hungry eyes how easy, how natural, it is for him to be truly vulnerable, leaves Lambert breathless once again.

Aiden is shameless as his cock leaks across Lambert’s abdomen. He’s frustratingly poised as he shivers through the aftershocks of orgasm, going somewhat pliant as Lambert takes another minute to find his end. They’re a messy mixture of thin sweat and tacky semen, still sprawled out across the mattress. The air in the attic room is too cold to remain uncovered for very long. 

Lambert tries to reach for the blanket shoved off the foot of the bed. But Aiden is quick to chide him, “I don’t have the means to wash it,”

“I don’t have the means to wash myself,” Lambert bites back. There’s no basin in the room. Aiden must use the one down one floor if he wishes to wash. And Lambert has no desire to be accosted in the stairwell by the too-enthusiastic elven children that occupy the rooms below. All of them absolutely adore Aiden, and are quick to find their way to the attic latch when they hear someone descending the ladder.

Huffing, Aiden rolls to one side. He grabs his canteen from the floor where it was haphazardly left when they tumbled into bed. Lambert finds it still half full, sloshing around the contents inside while Aiden pitches over the side of the bed once more to grab his undershirt. “Use this then.”

Lambert stands to clean himself, dribbling cold, clear water over Aiden’s unclean shirt. It’ll have to do. He wipes himself down the best he can, starting with Aiden’s drying cum smeared across his abdomen, then trying to find a less sullied bit to wash around his balls and flaccid cock.

“Leaving then?” Aiden asks, lounging in bed with no clear intention of getting up. Stretching his hands above his head, his forearms collide with the wall behind him, but he still has enough space to arch his back as he likes, the lean lines of his body defined and firm. There isn’t much light at all in the room, but Lambert hopes Aiden is at least glowing a bit in the way that comes from good sex.

“Yes,” Lambert replies too late. 

Aiden grins back at him, waving him off with one hand, “goodbye, then.”

— 

The journey to Kaer Morhen is not a pleasant one. It’s Lambert’s own fault for leaving it until so late in the season. No, fuck that, it’s Aiden’s fault for dragging Lambert round and round the contienent. Even if the Cat never asked directly. Even if Lambert never seriously entertained the idea of refusing.

He arrives at the gates at a late hour, the courtyard dark and still. Not like there would be anything in the way of activity in the bright light of day either. There hasn’t been much use of the yard at all since Geralt misplaced his Ciri.

Lambert pulls his overcoat more securely around his shoulders, even if he’ll be removing it shortly. He still has the right to be fucking cold. 

Once his horse is stabled, he quickly darts towards the massive oak and iron door. He doubts very much the others will be awake this hour. They all seem to sleep more soundly with solid walls around them. Especially at the start of winter, as if all the sleepless nights along the path are catching up to them. 

As expected, the entry hall is dark and barely warmer than the outside air. They have no need for candles, and no reason to try and heat the whole place, when each witcher has his own quarters.

Lambert finds his room as he left it last spring, only with more dust and long-abandoned cobwebs. Even the spiders know the winters are too harsh to brave. Nearly asleep on his feet already, Lambert paws half-heartedly at the silken threads stretching from wall to wall, breaking up what is likely to disturb his comfort once he’s in bed, and leaving the rest of the mess for his tomorrow-self. He gets his boots off, but little else, before collapsing fully on top of the musty bedding.

—

The sun pouring in through the great bay window is an unwelcome intruder so early in the morning. Bright light reflecting off of freshly fallen snow somehow feels like the ultimate betrayal. It’s not fucking right that the sky should be so clear and lovely when the air is still fucking cold.

Lambert forgot to draw the curtains. Serves him right.

Groaning as he rolls to his feet, Lambert plans on dealing with the offensive sunlight and crawling back into bed, under the covers this time. But he barely makes it to the window before there is a sharp knock at the door. Even without turning round to face the intruder, Lambert knows it must be Eskel. The others would not bother to knock.

Which isn’t to say Eskel’s manners are all that much better than his brothers’, because he does not wait for Lambert to respond before opening the door.

“Saw your horse in the stables. Vesemir was starting to worry. I’m glad you’re safe.” There’s no mistaking Eskel for anything other than the softest among them, at least in his care for others. A tacky sort of care that Lambert often finds himself wanting to scrape away. There’s nothing really ‘nice’ about it. But Eskel is unmistakably, well, kind.

Lambert does little else but grunt in return. With the curtains closed he makes a half-hearted attempt to head back to bed. There’s no chance, though, of Eskel leaving him now.

“I’m about to cook, come help,” Eskel doesn’t wait for Lambert to protest, simply turning to head down the hall towards the stairs that will take him to the kitchens.

Cursing under his breath, Lambert only briefly considers rejecting Eskel’s invitation. Besides, he has a whole winter of wallowing in his own undefined despair ahead of him. He’ll just have to make time to be bitter and miserable later.

Eskel has just started the fire by the time Lambert joins him. It will take some time yet before the kitchen is truly warm. Eskel is fully dressed in fur-lined trousers and his overcoat. Wet patches where snow has melted speckle his sleeves and shoulders. He’s the type to rise early and explore the surrounding forests for pleasure. Lambert has given up trying to understand. Instead of bothering to get fully dressed, Lambert threw one of his smaller blankets over his shoulders before coming downstairs. Once the fire is high enough, they’ll both need to shed layers anyway.

On one counter sits a small mountain of root vegetables brought up from the cellar, some still marred by dirt. Vesemir is getting worse as he gets older when it comes to half-assing things. He’s the one who insists on returning early each autumn to make sure everything is in order.

Eskel busies himself at the opposite countertop, a freshly caught rabbit limp to one side as he works to skin a second. That must be why he rose this early, to check the traps before other predators got the chance. “Help with the peeling,” Eskel tilts his head towards the carrots, potatoes, turnips, and whatever else he managed to drag up.

Giving an exaggerated huff, Lambert turns his attention towards doing as Eskel says. There’s a small knife set aside for peeling and a larger one for chopping. Lambert remembers doing the same as a child. There was a little step stool that Eskel pulled out from a cupboard so that Lambert would be tall enough to reach the countertop. He only had to help in the kitchens once a week. Because there were other boys who each took their turn.

A few years later, Lambert was tall enough to peel and cut without the step stool. And all the other boys were dead. No new boys came to take their place. Lambert hated cutting vegetables. Hated having to do it every day. Hated that no boys younger than him ever arrived, so that he might terrorize them as the others had chided and teased him. It wasn’t until he grew older that he grew grateful and bitter about the decision Vesemir made.

Eskel doesn’t require any conversation, though he hums to himself as he works. The two Witchers keep different rhythms as they peel and cut and chop. Before too long Lambert grows itchy-anxious. Out of the four Wolves that remain, he’s the chatty one. A fact that is easy to forget in the summertime, when Aiden is always purring in his ear about things that are important and things that are not. At least Eskel has a decent disposition, so he doesn’t sound put out when Lambert launches into a tale from late spring. One that Aiden wasn’t there for. He tries to avoid those stories, lest he slip up and let out that he hasn’t been working alone.

Eskel laughs in the right places, his attention only visibly wavering as he comes over to check on Lambert’s progress. They cannot add the meat until after the vegetables have already been soaking for some time. The fire is high enough now that Eskel has shed his overcoat, down to just his tunic and broad shoulders. Lambert stops cutting, even though he’s behind, to take a decent look at his brother.

For awhile he’s been wondering if it’s all men now, or just Aiden, or something else. At least for today he decides it’s definitely not Eskel. Which tells him very little.

“I’ll help,” Eskel takes half the remaining potatoes.

—

Vesemir hugs Lambert, once he emerges from his quarters around midday. He tells Lambert plainly that he’s glad that he’s alright. And as much as Lambert rolls his eyes and insinuates that he doesn’t care, there’s a warm, twisting feeling in his stomach that makes him almost say that he’s sorry to have worried everyone.

Geralt doesn’t appear until the evening meal. It’s still early enough in winter that he prefers spending the days outside with his damned horse. He nods his head in Lambert’s direction when he sees him, but doesn’t make the same show of it like the others.

—

A week passes, then two. They fall into familiar rhythms. Lambert aches for Aiden, but cannot confide in his brothers. He wouldn’t know what to say. Even in euphemisms, he doesn’t know how to...it would be easier to just show them. But if he could show them Aiden, then he wouldn’t feel such a bothersome loneliness anyway. Pointless.

The closest he gets is some biting remark about how Geralt hasn’t managed to bring a sorceress with him this season. Geralt shrugs him off, but looks down intensely into his plate. Vesemir laughs, pointing out that Lambert has never wintered with anyone, so he’s not one to talk. He has to bite his tongue before he snaps back that it’s not for a lack of trying. But that would make him sound even more pathetic.

—

Enhanced senses or not, a Witcher has to sleep. And with sleep comes a sort of warm contentment that so often eludes Lambert in his waking hours. So it is not until he feels a hot, damp puff of breath across his face that his eyes shoot open.

His body reacts before his mind can catch up, pouncing on the intruder in his room. They topple to the stone floor, Lambert’s knees cracking hard and the warm body beneath his falling prone. A half laugh is pushed from between Aiden’s lips, pupils huge to see in the dark of Lambert’s quarters.

“A dream,” Lambert huffs, despite distinctly feeling the chill in the air where his bedsheets have slid from around his body, bunched up between them.

Smiling, Aiden shakes his head, “No.”

Incredulously, Lambert smashes his mouth down against Aiden’s. This may be a dream but it’s a vivid one, and Lambert plans on taking whatever pleasure he can before he wakes with sticky linens tangled around his hips.

“I take it that you missed me?” Aiden sticks the tip of his tongue past his lips when Lambert has to pull back to breathe. His lungs feel vaguely achy, enough that he starts to believe this might be real.

“You whoreson,” Lambert threads his fingers through Aiden’s hair. It’s loose around his shoulders, spilling out across the stones. Such an odd detail to be wrong. Aiden always wears his hair tied back.

Gasping into the pressure, Aiden complains, “Can’t we move this reunion to the bed? I’m not made for this climate.”

“You are real…” Lambert doesn’t intend for his voice to sound so awed. It’ll go straight to Aiden’s head.

“Maybe,” he shoves at Lambert’s shoulder.

By the time they’ve both shuffled into bed, Lambert is reasonably certain this isn’t a dream. And that forces him to slow down. What was supposed to be a taudry sex-dream is now the reality of a slightly-shivering Aiden curled up in his fucking bed. He still wants to touch Aiden everywhere. He still is touching Aiden everywhere. But the unbending need he felt before to shove his cock in Aiden’s hole has broken. Especially when he notices his friend can barely keep his eyes open.

If Aiden has come, he must mean to stay. They’ll have time tomorrow, surely. Once Aiden is warm and rested.

And tomorrow Lambert can figure out what the fuck he’s going to tell his brothers.

—

Aiden wakes Lambert with his mouth on his dick. Not quite sucking, more like lazy licks. Lambert hates it when Aiden does this. When he delays, teases, taunts. He’s a fucking show-off is what he is. Before Aiden, Lambert couldn’t imagine any man taking pride in sucking cock. Now he wants to be even better than Aiden. That would show him.

He’s boneless by the time Aiden is done, sweat sticking to his chest despite how fucking cold it is. Crawling back up Lambert’s body, Aiden presses a chaste kiss against his shoulder before settling in. 

Lambert should light the fire. Normally, he doesn’t bother. He’s warm enough at night beneath the blankets. But Aiden isn’t used to the cold like he is.

“Selfish, selfish,” Aiden teases when Lambert goes to stand. Tumbling back down, Lambert forgets about the fireplace, taking Aiden in hand instead.

“Lambert.” They’re both awake. And witchers. So they can’t miss the creaking of the door. Lambert, despite his better instincts freezes, his hand still wrapped around Aiden’s prick.

Aiden’s first reaction is to hide, grabbing the edge of the blankets and burying himself out of sight. The rustling of the bedding is enough for Lambert to snap to attention, turning sharply to meet Geralt’s eyes.

Of course. Because there was no knock.

“What the fuck?” Lambert hisses, showing Geralt his teeth. “Get out.”

Geralt doesn’t get out. He narrows his eyes, tilts his head. “So, that explains the other horse.” Then he finally goes, snapping the door behind him without any more questions.

Fuck.

Aiden pokes his head back out from beneath the sheets, static sticking in his still-loose hair. His golden eyes dart to Lambert’s face, mouth still hidden by the blankets. “How much do they know about me, anyway?”

Lambert shakes his head, “Nothing,” he admits. “I’ve never told them.”

He expects to be scolded, for Aiden to make a big deal out of this. Lambert has been all but begging Aiden to come to Kaer Morhen for years, but he’s been too much of a coward to even tell his brother’s the Cat exists. Perhaps Aiden will think that Lambert was never very serious in his invitations. But he was, he always was. From their first year to this day. Lambert would have told his brothers, if only Aiden told him that he was coming.

“Do you want to tell them?” There’s no sadness in Aiden’s voice. No hesitation. The words are as clear and confident as Aiden sounds when negotiating a contract. The question is genuine. This is up to Lambert.

“They probably all know, now.”

Aiden crawls out a bit more from under the covers. “Not really, they haven’t seen me yet. They do not know that I’m a man, or a witcher. I can leave through the window. You’ll just need to say I was a woman, and I’m gone now. It’s nothing.”

Panic seizes in Lambert’s chest, and this, at least, he can recognize for what it is. If Aiden leaves, he’s never coming back. Lambert has wanted honestly, desperately, for Aiden to winter here, where it’s safe. Where Lambert is. Lambert doesn’t want to wait months and months not knowing if his friend is safe.

“Stay,” his throat feels dry, heart hammering against his ribs, “I’ll tell them.”

Aiden’s nostrils flare, his mouth set in a gentle frown, “you don’t have to tell them we’re fucking. You may be shit at lying, but I’m very good. I can come up with something…”

“No,” Lambert cuts him off. “No, I’ll tell them.”

“But not a Cat,” Aiden warns.

“Not a Cat?” Lambert still doesn’t fully grasp why Aiden is still so anxious about his school. He would have been far too young. The others won’t hold what Aiden’s brothers did to the Wolves against him. But, yeah, Lambert did suggest they simply lie. They can say Aiden is from a different school and leave it be. Only now they don’t have the means to find him a different medallion.

“I have an idea.”

Aiden usually has ideas.

Wait, where is his medallion...

—

It’s nearly noon before they finally extract themselves from bed. First Lambert had to finish what he started when it came to taking care of Aiden’s prick. Then they’d both fallen asleep again in the hazy afterglow. Finally, Aiden had to appraise Lambert on the skeleton of his plan.

“A witcher?” Vesemir’s eyebrows dart up towards his hairline, unable to hide his shock.

“No, um,” Aiden puts on a bit of the bashful mannerisms that he usually reserves for persuading older ladies or those with a soft spot for strays. He always exalts the importance of audience adaptation.

“A man?” Geralt sounds incredulous, his voice breaking on the single syllable.

Across the room, Eskel only laughs.

“Not a witcher sir, no. Though I’ve been through the trials, of course,” he turns his face away from the others, as if hiding his eyes in shame.

Aiden explains in sparse strokes how as a boy, years ago, he was taken, forced through the trials as a sort of experiment, maybe? He’s not sure. He barely saw the Witchers’ faces, no, he doesn’t know which school. They seemed disgusted, angry that he survived when their own boys had died. 

Lambert had been rather neutral on the whole plan when Aiden first explained it. It seemed, well, logical enough actually. The story Aiden would tell would be disjointed, free of explicit analysis of his own fate, why it happened, who had done it. But Aiden was certain Lambert’s older brothers would draw conclusions. The Cat’s chemicals were long suspected to have gone bad. The Witchers themselves were thought to be cruel. To take a boy who wasn’t theirs, torture him with the trials, and abandon him when they realized it was possible to survive, only they had picked their recruits poorly, would send them into a rage.

But Aiden doesn’t have to tell them all that. After saying he survived the trial, he goes quiet, withdrawn. The others don’t ask questions. Lambert knows the story is churning in Vesemir’s head, his lips setting into a frown. But nothing about his expression suggests that he thinks Aiden is lying. No, if anything, he looks angry at those who did this to Aiden years ago.

The thing is, now that Aiden has spun his lie, Lambert hates it. He hates that Aiden is lying about not being a Witcher. He hates that Aiden is playing bashful. He hates that he has to keep up this lie too. He hates that all his brothers are going to think that he’s fucking a man who isn’t his Aiden. That they won’t have the faintest clue who his friend really is. They won’t know how clever and brave and good Aiden can be. Because for the next several months, Aiden will be playing a different role.

—

But, at the very least, Aiden is himself when they’re alone.

Lambert takes him fishing.

On a day when the sky is clear and the sun is high, it’s just warm enough against their faces to set off the chill of the surrounding air. Aiden didn’t bring anything to wear that’s really heavy enough for the mountain climate. But they are similar enough in size that Lambert’s heavy coats and lined breeches fit him decently enough. Boots are a different matter. The lovely leather ones Aiden normally wears are too thin, liable to soak through in the snow. Lambert’s older pair is far too large, even when they double up Aiden’s socks.

They spend the morning crafting specialized bombs inside, sitting on the floor far enough from the now-lit fireplace that the sparks can’t stray into their materials. Once Lambert is satisfied with the number, they dress to head out to the lake.

Lambert gears up fully. He doesn’t expect monsters or beasts this time of year, but both still live in the surrounding woods. Even if their populations are thin, there’s still the chance. 

Aiden only has a small knife with him. He’d left everything, really everything, hidden away in Novigrad. 

“Fucking stupid is what it is,” Lambert curses once they’re far enough from the keep that he’s confident the others won’t overhear.

The lake is too close to justify taking their horses. Better the girls stay warm and dry in the stables, then haul them out on a trot that’s less than two miles there and back.

Aiden rolls his eyes, “what if your brothers are nosy, then? What if they find my swords, my satchel, my medallion? This way there’s no chance. We don’t have to worry.”

“But I’m going to worry,” Lambert spits, “what if you were attacked getting here? What if you’re attacked getting back?” 

Aiden may be cleverly hiding that he’s a true witcher from Lambert’s brothers, but any schmuck of a villager will know what he is on-sight. Nevermind the fact that Aiden is also very clearly not a Northerner, not with the lovely brown hue of his skin. Even were he not a witcher, he draws attention to himself.

“You’ll just have to escort me, then,” Aiden teases.

Lambert mutters curses beneath his breath. Looks like he has no choice.

Cold air whips across the open pond without the shelter of trees to break the wind. Aiden already looks a little bit miserable about the temperature, but Lambert won’t let that deter his plans.

The lake has been frozen solid for a few weeks now. From years of experience Lambert is confident in his ability to judge the thickness of the ice. His feet and balance instinctually seem to know which steps are safe and which lead to danger. He leads Aiden across the smooth expanse to almost the center of the lake. Here should be good enough.

Lambert drives the tip of his steel sword into the ice, twisting the blade back and forth to grind out a small depression in the surface. Once satisfied, he switches to the bulkier, spiral auger that he’s borrowed from Vesemir. The tool itself is some decades older than Lambert, the smith who fashioned the original’s identity lost in the intervening years. Vesemir maintains the tool himself now, carefully sharpening the blades each spring once the winter comes to an end.

The auger slices cleanly through the ice as Lambert spins it round and round. Aiden laughs at him, saying he’s liable to get dizzy that way. When Lambert is satisfied with the hole he’s bored, he looks up to meet Aiden’s smiling face. His cheeks are blushed a peachy sort of color from the cold.

“We used to come do this as kids,” Lambert explains.

Aiden is a witcher too, so he knows not to ask where Lambert’s old playmates are now. Lambert thinks that Aiden is among the last too. Though Aiden has never confirmed as much. 

“Okay,” Lambert hands Aiden the first bomb before gathering up his satchel and the auger. “The ice should hold, but we should still be careful. Light it, drop it, and run in the direction we came from.”

Aiden never has been much for personal safety, and with a shrug of his shoulders, he lights the bomb. The bomb ‘plicks!’ as it hits the water and they’re both running. They don’t have much time to get clear if something does go wrong. The fuse is short, and mostly hidden inside the bomb’s casing to make sure the water doesn’t snuff it out.

Lambert hasn’t done this in a couple of years now. He’s forgotten how his lungs burn as he sucks down frozen air. Next to him, he can hear Aiden wheezing softly.

Two more seconds and there’s a boom beneath the surface of the pond, a dull vibration followed by an eerie quiet. Lambert slaps his friend on the shoulder, telling Aiden they ought to head back to assess their spoils.

Some ten feet out from the original hole they already come across some battered fish thrown up by the blast. The ice is still hard and solid under their feet. The force of the blast throws the fish around something awful, but the explosion isn’t concentrated enough to do much damage to the surrounding ice.

They pick up half a dozen sort-of-intact fish from the blast zone. Lambert is pretty pleased with himself. Now it’s just time to find another spot and start all over again.

“This is ridiculous, Lambert,” not ridiculous enough to keep Aiden from smiling at him, though. Or maybe just enough.

Slapping Aiden on the shoulder again, Lambert admits, “it sure is.”

—

It turns out that watching Aiden walk the halls of Kaer Morhen, dressed mostly in Lambert’s clothes, is doing something awfully inconvenient to Lambert’s current mental state. Doesn’t help that any time Aiden is outside his room, but inside the keep’s walls, he puts back on his shy, vulnerable demeanor. 

Geralt tries his best to be kind to Aiden, like he’s some sort of wounded animal. He asks Aiden how he’s settling in. If it isn’t too cold? If he needs anything? If Lambert treats him well?

That’s another shoe that’s left to drop. None of Lambert’s brothers have spoken to him directly about the nature of his relationship with Aiden. Geralt did walk in on them, more or less, that first morning. But their hands (and pricks) were beneath the sheets. 

Aiden sleeps in Lambert’s bed, but that doesn’t mean anyone really knows what they do together. But how could they not assume? They must all know that he and Aiden are fucking. And not one has asked Lambert what the fuck he’s doing with a man.

“If there’s anything you should need, do ask,” Geralt offers in hushed tones, as if Lambert cannot hear him from across the room where he is playing dice games with Eskel.

“Get your own lover, Geralt,” Lambert growls despite himself. At least now, no one can claim that he’s said nothing.

He expects raucous laughter to spill from Aiden’s throat, as it has so many times before at the tavern table, in dusty ruins, along the roads they’ve shared. Lambert expects unbidden glee in the face of how ridiculous he must sound. Biting insults and snide remarks. But there is nothing from Aiden’s chair. All Aiden had managed to do is sink down deeper into the shelter of his borrowed overcoat and demurely turn his face away from Geralt’s.

Lambert hates this.

—

“No one has called me, ah, ‘lover’ before,” Aiden pants. 

Lambert’s prick is already shoved so far up Aiden’s tight ass that he’s seeing stars, fighting back the urge to come too soon and leave Aiden unsatisfied.

“Liar, don’t try that shit with me,” Lambert hisses through gritted teeth. 

Slamming his hips back down, Aiden grinds back and forth as he rocks across Lambert’s lap. “That one’s true. At least, no one has said it in front of another person. No one has ever admitted to...being mine.”

And that, Lambert realizes, may very well be true. He knows that Aiden has fucked plenty of times before him, and implicitly that none of his partners have been women. An older witcher told Aiden once, that he should go to bed with women, if he was able. He wasn’t.

Aiden pulls at Lambert’s hair until their lips meet once more. Lambert almost wishes he hadn’t set the fire that now competes with the heat of their bodies moving together. He wraps his fingers around Aiden’s hips, unsure himself if his intention is to steady or to spur. All he can really focus on is the slap of skin together, the tightness round his prick, and the fevered way he aches to set things right.

Some minutes after they’ve finished, Aiden starts to shiver again, though the room is still too warm for Lambert’s tastes. Now doesn’t seem like the time to speak, but that’s never really stopped Lambert before.

“I want to tell my brothers the truth, I want them to know.”

Aiden shuffles next to him in bed, turning from his back onto his side. Lambert only tilts his head enough to catch a glimpse of Aiden’s confused expression, brows knit together. 

“You told them the truth. You told them we were lovers. They couldn’t possibly have taken your words in jest. Besides, they know we share a bed-“

“No, not that,” Lambert corrects. “You, I want to tell them the truth about who you are. I want you...to stop pretending. To show them, for you to not play-act some helpless waif. It’s not who you are.” He knows now that even though his original suggestion was to simply hide the truth of Aiden’s school, that wouldn’t be enough either. 

“What I’ll be is dead if you fucking tell them,” Aiden hisses. At the very least, he doesn’t try to get out of bed. Lambert suspects that’s only because he’s finally gotten warm underneath the covers. “What if the helpless waif is who I really am? Hm? Have you considered I might be enjoying myself?”

Lambert snickers at the mere suggestion, “you would never be happy keeping your mouth shut for so long.”

That at least coaxes a laugh from Aiden, “Fair enough.” He pauses, “why does this mean so much to you? Why did you want me here? Why do you want your brothers to know?”

Usually it’s Lambert asking a string of questions, winding up Aiden to keep on talking and fill the silence, like a mechanical toy. 

“You mean something to me,” Lambert offers, “I...want to know you’re safe. I told you as much. And…” the last question is harder for him. Truthfully, he’s never had a strong desire to hide Aiden from the other Wolves. Perhaps it is true that he once worried what they might think of him, but that’s different than actually wanting to deny the truth.

Lambert knows he is not Aiden. He has not had to spend a lifetime hiding who he is. They are both witchers, yes. And with that comes its own sort of torment. This clinging, constricting life for which Lambert never wished. Lambert has been angry for a long time that he is a witcher, that he is and is not a man. But his anger drove him to confront every whoreson who dared to look at him with contempt. To flaunt his difference in the faces of village men before he ploughed their daughters. To generally make a nuisance of himself. Because if he couldn’t change who he was, everyone else would be forced to suffer along with him.

Aiden isn’t like that though. No, he’s not bashful or coy like the character he’s taken on. But he’s….good. He cares what others think of him, strives to be friendly and likable, a real charmer. And his acceptance, however meager, has always been predicated on hiding parts of himself from view.

“I want them to know you, as I know you. For them to understand how…” every choice sounds too sentimental. Even in the privacy of Lambert’s own skull.

Aiden is quiet for a long while before responding, “Tell them. But first, tell me. If your brothers draw their swords against me, who would you choose?”

“I’ll knock some sense into them. It won’t come to picking sides. Not like that,” it’s as close to a promise as Lambert can manage.

He feels Aiden nod at his side.

—

It’s another three days before they’re all in the same place at the same time again. Geralt fucked off to who knows where for a couple of nights. If he wants to freeze his arse out in the woods, that’s his decision. Maybe in hindsight it would have been better to explain themselves to each of Lambert’s brothers one by one. Yeah, it would have been good to start with Eskel and work their way around. Too late for that though. Lambert is a bit past the point of denying he is one to go in for theatrics. 

He did choose Aiden, after all.

“I’ve got to tell you something,” Lambert hasn’t touched his evening meal. The others have their mouths stuffed, which may well prevent them from saying anything stupid. “It’s about Aiden...and me...and what we haven’t told you…” he has to stop stalling.

“He wants me to tell you who I really am,” Aiden’s voice is without inflection, a monotone that Lambert hasn’t heard before. “The story I told you all was a lie. I’m a witcher, same as you.” He lets the silence hang heavy in the air. All eyes are turned now to the pair of them, seated side-by-side at the long dining table, meant for twenty some witchers, not for the five currently seated. 

“Why lie?” Geralt’s face betrays nothing. Not anger, not concern, nor curiosity. As if he’s asking the question only because it is the obvious thing to say, not because the answer particularly concerns him.

“I wanted you to like me,” Aiden responds, as if everything is that easy. As if he wasn’t the one insisting they keep his identity a secret. “And I heard you two,” he tilts his head in the direction of both Vesemir and Geralt, “don’t care much at all for Cats.”

Vesemir’s chair screeches across the floor as he pushes back. Lambert’s whole body tenses, standing up just as quick. He meant what he told Aiden. He does not want this to come to violence. Well, he’d be willing to knock his brothers around a bit until they see sense. But no one is fucking dying over this.

Aiden doesn’t move from his chair, though his eyes follow Vesemir’s form as he rises. Vesemir doesn’t advance. None of them are properly armed at the moment, though Lambert is certain they all carry knives on their person, even when they remove their swords for meals.

Saying nothing at all, Vesemir leaves the room. Geralt follows after him.

—

Eskel stays with them. Or maybe he’s only interested in finishing his dinner. He and Geralt aren’t so far apart in age, so Lambert isn’t sure what’s different, when it comes to the matter of Cats.

Only after Eskel has eaten his fill does he twine his fingers together, looking pensive, but not upset. Neither Aiden nor Lambert have touched their food since the others left.

“I wasn’t there, at the tournament. But Geralt was,” Eskel shakes his head. “A bloody affair, a disaster. News reached Kaer Morhen before Geralt did. I was relieved that he was safe.” There’s something else there. Something Eskel isn’t sharing. “I wouldn’t say it was the beginning of the end. No, the end was long-started by that point. But it didn’t help. Vesemir, he blames himself. I’m sure of it. Though he was not the eldest at the time.”

Lambert doesn’t know what to say. But, like so many times before, Aiden clearly does, “I was there,” he frowns, “they had nowhere else to leave me.” Lambert wouldn’t be born for another three years. “I had not yet undergone the trials. I think they meant for me to hold a sword, whether or not I had my mutations. One of the others talked Treyse out of it. Convinced him I’d only be a corpse getting in the way.”

“How old were you then?” Lambert asks. Aiden has never explicitly shared this much about his early life with him. Honestly, he’s a bit jealous that Eskel is learning these things about his friend at the same time he is.

Aiden closes his eyes, as if trying to remember, “Nine or ten. I underwent the trails in what was maybe my twelfth year. The survivors...they were running out of time. Didn’t think they could afford to wait any longer.”

Lambert feels the rage boiling beneath his skin, as far as he knows, Vesemir never put a child younger than fourteen through the mutations. “They could have let you go.”

Aiden shrugs, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t hate them for it. They were miserable, horrible people. I know. But I do not hate them for what they did. I’d be dead, otherwise. No one else in the north would take in a child that looks like me.” There’s a tension that won’t leave Aiden’s shoulders, “it’s funny. Your brothers are so good to you. And you hate them for what they did to you. Mine are wretched, and I cannot bring myself to be angry.”

Eskel laughs at the other end of the table. Lambert had nearly forgotten he was there at all. “We know he doesn’t hate us. No matter what he might say.”

“I know as much as he hates you, he loves you as well,” Aiden smiles.

Lambert should knock some sense into that pretty head of Aiden’s. He’s speaking of things he doesn’t have any idea about. 

Eskel turns his attention back to Lambert, his expression a bit fonder now. Lambert doesn’t like it one bit. “You should go talk to Geralt. He’ll understand.”

“And the old man?” Lambert lifts one eyebrow. This hasn’t gone as terribly as Aiden thought it would. But maybe a bit worse than Lambert was expecting. A row would have been better. They could have fought things out and then everyone would settle down. Lambert isn’t sure how he’s supposed to handle the other two like this. He can’t deal with being offered the silent treatment.

“I don’t know on that one,” Eskel admits. “He’s probably worried for you. Like I said, he blames himself.”

Lambert doesn’t love the idea of leaving Aiden’s side. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Eskel, he does. Well, at least he’s never known Eskel to be two-faced. Lambert doubts very much that Eskel’s current comfort with Aiden as a Cat is some sort of ruse to get him alone and murder him. It still feels wrong though, to be apart from Aiden after all that he’s just shared. Sort of tender and raw. 

Eskel is right though. He has to go talk to Geralt. Otherwise the other witcher will just stew in his own thoughts. And when Geralt comes out the other side, things might be even worse between them, and that’s not what Lambert wants. He wants him and Aiden to be accepted here, as they are.

Lambert takes Aiden’s hand in his. Aiden gives him a funny look, then smiles when Lambert squeezes down on his hand. “I’m going to talk to Geralt I guess. You’ll be alright?”

“Of course,” Aiden replies, “now I can force Eskel to listen to my actual tales. What a lovely captive audience to have.”

Lambert rolls his eyes, “He doesn’t shut up once he gets going. Feel free to tell him to fuck off, Eskel.” It’s not as if Eskel doesn’t have stories of his own to share.

—

Lambert finds Geralt in the courtyard, freezing his arse off for no good reason. He’s taking a wooden training sword to a snow-covered dummy, sacking it over and over and over again, beating the stuffing clear out the side stitching.

Standing in silence about fifteen yards away, Lambert watches him. Geralt’s pace never changes, his strength doesn’t waver. Thwack, thwack, thwack. He probably started twenty minutes ago, right after he stormed off from dinner, and hasn’t stopped once.

The sky is dark and Geralt hasn’t bothered with the lamps. Lambert sees no reason to light them now. There’s no indication that Geralt will stop his little tirade any time soon, and Lambert has no intention of staying out in the cold all night. Even if this is a problem he’s somewhat (maybe mostly) responsible for.

“I’m starting to think you’re angry,” Lambert drolls. He’s still well out of striking distance, so even if Geralt turned on him, he has enough space and time to make a move of his own.

Geralt turns sharply away from the dummy, sword gripped tightly in both hands. There’s frustration written across his face, no hint yet of exhaustion. Dumb whoreson could probably go for hours without tiring. Lambert hates him for it.

For a single second Lambert thinks that Geralt is about to turn on him, the tension still visibly prickling through his posture. But in the end, Geralt throws the sword to the ground with such force that it snaps on impact. Hard to believe it didn’t break before when Geralt was wailing on the practice dummy. Maybe casting it aside was the straw that broke the horse’s back.

“What do you want?” Geralt shows his teeth, lips curling back in an obvious threat.

Lambert sighs, “let’s start with you not being a little bitch. And take things from there.” Perhaps not the most diplomatic of openings.

“You bring a traitor into our home. He’s not supposed to be here. You knew it, that’s why you lied,” Geralt accuses.

And he’s not wrong, not entirely. “Do you really believe that? Or is it just what you think you’re supposed to believe?”

“I know for certain that you deceived us. All of us.”

“Because we were afraid of this,” Lambert holds his arms wide apart, as if he could signal that he truly means to include everything and everyone. “You know he’s not old enough to have fought at the tournament. He’s barely older than I am.” Lambert leaves out the detail that even he wasn’t quite sure of that until a half hour ago. “He was just a child when it happened.”

Geralt shakes his head, “you weren’t there. You didn’t know them. What they were capable of. Even before the tournament. And certainly after.”

“No,” Lambert admits. He’s never met a Cat who isn’t Aiden. All he knows of the other Cats are the stories told by his brothers. Even Aiden doesn’t speak often of the other Cats. He knows a little of Gaetan, but not as a witcher, instead as an elder sibling, or maybe something else. “But I know him.”

“He had me fooled. That story, it doesn’t make any sense, now that I think about it. But I believed it.” Geralt pauses, as if considering something he hasn’t thought of before. “He’s a very good liar. How do you know everything he’s told you about himself isn’t a lie as well?”

Lambert doesn’t hesitate, “because I’ve heard him tell a hundred lies, maybe more. I can’t remember the first lie he told me. But I do remember the first time I was absolutely certain he spoke the truth to me.”

“And when was that?” Now that Geralt is no longer exerting himself, he’s beginning to look cold.

“When he told me that he was lonely,” Lambert recounts. “Because I was lonely too.”

Geralt doesn’t quite look convinced, but he at least asks, “in the time that you’ve known him, has he taken a contract on a human?”

Lambert knows this is a point of contention for the others. He knows it should be for him as well. Not once has he killed a man for coin, though they’ve all killed men for other motivations. “Yes, I think so,” Lambert admits. Another lie will just undo the progress that they’ve made.

“And? Did he seem proud of what he did?”

That Lambert has to think about. He remembers hearing rumors about a local noble girl turning up dead. Then finding the ring, with a diameter that would only fit around a particularly slender finger, latched to the inside of Aiden’s bag with a few stitches of thread so that it wouldn’t get lost inside the cavernous interior. Lambert recognized it immediately as proof of a contract fulfilled. 

“He was ashamed,” Lambert concludes, “he thought he wasn’t the man I believed him to be. And that upset him.”

Geralt only grunts in reply.

—

“Tell me something else?” Lambert asks.

He and Aiden are bundled together in the safety of Lambert’s quarters. Vesemir has not been seen since dinner. Geralt is at least somewhere in the keep, if not retired to bed as well. Lambert still feels that strange magnetic desire to stay close to Aiden now. A fragile sort of protectiveness that isn’t entirely new on his part, but is stronger now than it has been in a long time.

Aiden runs his long fingers through Lambert’s loose hair as Lambert rests his head against Aiden’s shoulder. The room is quiet other than their breathing, the crackling fire, wind against the glass panes.

“About what?” Aiden asks.

Lambert replies, “Yourself.”

“But you already know everything important. You know who I am today. And neither of us know who we will be tomorrow,” he says it like the words are something sage, instead of the horseshite they both know they are.

“I know exactly who I’ll be tomorrow,” Lambert asserts, “the same as I am today.” He means to say, ‘I’ll still be yours,’ but can’t. Of course he can’t.

Aiden huffs, “You wish to know my past, like it matters. What it was like, when I wasn’t a witcher.”

“See, I’m always the same.”

Aiden’s hand goes still in Lambert’s hair, and for a moment, Lambert thinks that he’s angered his friend. But, it turns out, Aiden was only thinking of a tale.

“I wasn’t the youngest who went through the trials that day. But I was the youngest who survived.”

Lambert wonders if he should have asked for a happy story. It’s too late now to interrupt.

“Sute was two years older, he lived. The younger two were about nine. I don’t think anyone expected them to live. But as I said….we were running out of time. Maybe they should have slaughtered the younger ones outright. Maybe they should have done the same to me.” Aiden tips his head back, so that the back of his skull taps against the headboard. “We were always moving, on the run. But,” a smile pierces through the melancholy in Aiden’s voice. “I remember six weeks after the trials were complete, Sute and I were by the fire, the elder witchers otherwise occupied with whatever. And we had this great idea.

“I stood out too much, we decided. My eyes would just make things worse now. I was never oblivious to the fact I didn’t look like the others. It’s hard not to notice. Even then, I knew something else was different about me, something no one could see. But anyway, Sute and I settled on the idea that if my eyes were no longer human, we needed to change something else in trade.

“My teeth,” he grabs Lambert’s hand by the wrist, lifting it up until he guides two fingers into his mouth. Aiden bites down gently at the tips of Lambert’s fingers before releasing them to speak again. “We were already discovering how much less everything hurt now that we were changed. And I was young and stupid and thought, fantastic, we can just...break my teeth. Give myself the little pointy ones I was missing.”

Lambert has been knocked in the teeth enough times to have an idea of where this story is headed.

“Turns out, in fact, trying to purposely chip your own teeth, mutations or not, is a painful affair. Sute tried to ‘file them down’ but really it was more smashing at them without finesse. I ended up with a mouthful of blood. But at least my teeth weren’t all flat anymore.”

“You’re telling me a fourteen year old gave you canines?” Lambert replies incredulously. He’s always really known that Aiden’s teeth were odd. Though he has points where his canines should be, they’re too short, the rest of his teeth too uniform in comparison. 

Aiden laughs at that, “No, no, my teeth were a mess for years. Absolutely awful. I paid a man skilled in such things to fix them once I was older. He’s gone now, I’m sure. But as I healed I spent the winter in Novigrad. Not the same room I have now but...it became familiar...Sute is gone now too.”

Lambert tells a story that seems trivial in comparison. Tending the garden with his mother. The first flower he ever coaxed to bloom. How proud she seemed of his little accomplishment, though undoubtedly most of the labor was hers. Lambert doesn’t know why that’s the narrative he settles on. Maybe because even now he believes that he loves his mother, though he can barely remember her face. And something about the way Aiden spoke about Sute made Lambert think Aiden loved that boy in a way not unlike how Lambert loves his mother. 

After Lambert finishes, Aiden says he liked hearing about her. That he wishes he could have known her. And that he wishes they lived in a world where she could come to know him too.

—

There is no easy answer to Vesemir’s anger, or Geralt’s suspicions. But neither witcher demands that Aiden must leave Kaer Morhen. Vesemir returns to the keep less than a day after he disappeared. He’s not as friendly with Aiden as he once was, but he’s not openly hostile either. Geralt says very little at all to Aiden, despite the kindness he was so open with expressing prior.

Lambert would like to say it doesn’t bother him. That he doesn’t care what his brothers think. He wishes he were better at lying to himself. He’s always wanted things he cannot have, and then becomes frustrated, bitter, angry, when he’s denied the privilege.

Vesemir pulls him aside on a snowy morning, saying that they need to spar. Lambert brushes the old man off, citing that he’s well past the point of remedial training. It doesn’t matter how much Vesemir insists, he’s not going outside to get his feet wet and nose frozen. Certainly not for a man who won’t even acknowledge the presence of his friend half the time.

“Go,” Aiden insists, once Lambert has concluded his little tirade about how he isn’t going. “He’s trying to make nice with you.”

Lambert seethes, “Not if he’s going to still be a whoreson about you.”

Aiden rolls his eyes. He looks quite comfortable, sprawled out across the threadbare velvet armchair tucked up against the window of Lambert’s room. A book in one hand and a glass of liquor in the other, Aiden makes it quite clear he can entertain himself for an hour or two while “Vesemir kicks the shit out of you.”

“Like you’re one to talk. You’re about the sorriest excuse for a swordsman I’ve seen among our kind,” Lambert bites.

Always a comeback in hand, Aiden responds, “At least I have the excuse that there was no one left of any skill to train me. But you? They say Geralt of Rivia is among the finest fighters to ever live. And Vesemir was his tutor. You’ve been afforded every advantage, and you’re still shite.”

—

Lambert doesn’t want to go. And he almost doesn’t. Eventually, though, he drags himself out of Aiden’s orbit, throwing on his overcoat and departing to find Vesemir. He wanders the halls of the keep, until he feels too warm under his coat. The sound of Vesemir in conversation with Eskel outside has been obvious from the start.

“You wanted a fight, old man?” Lambert asks. His hands are shoved inside the pockets of his coat. White puffs of breath stream from his mouth. He’s left his gloves in his room. If they’re actually sparring, his fingers will warm soon enough.

Eskel says he may as well find Geralt. They were meant to check the traps today. Lambert finds himself wishing for some sort of buffer between himself and Vesemir, but any hope of that is now gone.

Vesemir insists on using practice swords, instead of steel. Lambert scoffs at that, he’s not a novice. As if to prove a point, he’s more cautious than his usual approach, trying to parry and step away when Vesemir moves to take a strike. Aiden’s teasing is still in his ears. That Lambert should really be better than he is. As much as Aiden (maybe) meant it in jest, something about the implication stings.

A step to the left and Vesemir leaves himself open on his flank. Seizing the opportunity presented to him, Lambert takes a confident strike, aiming for Vesemir’s ribs. Too late does Lambert realize that he’s been led into a trap. Vesemir shifts his weight back, avoiding Lambert’s strike before lunging forward from his new angle. Lambert skitters backwards, trying to avoid the blow, but despite his age, Vesemir is still sharp enough to add a second step, bringing him in close enough to strike.

Lambert curses his mistake, trying now in earnest to land his first blow. More aggressively now he aims to strike Vesemir across the chest. He knows that each slash of his sword will be deflected, once, twice, three times. He only needs to wear Vesemir down a little, use his comparative youth to his advantage. There will be the chance to sneak past Vesemir’s defenses.

But, as Lambert pulls back his arm to ready another hit, Vesemir pokes him harmlessly, infuriatingly, on the hip. A third strike in a row is enough to win the game. Lambert adjusts his approach again.

It’s futile though. And maybe Lambert knew that from the start. This isn’t really about sparring anyway. Vesemir gave up on trying to teach him ages ago. Maybe because he wasn’t a prodigy, like Geralt. Or good natured, like Eskel. No, he was always just a problem for the others.

“You’ve lost,” Vesemir says. As if Lambert had to be reminded.

“Yeah, and?” Lambert challenges. He drops his ass against the low wall that blocks off the exterior staircase to the cellar. It’s at least better than sitting in the snow.

Vesemir frowns, “it won’t be in that man’s nature to be truthful. To be good. He’ll betray you one day, when the opportunity strikes.”

Here’s the lecture Lambert anticipated, “Lucky for me then, he’s not very good with that sword of his. Even I can beat him in a fight and well,” he holds out his hand at the present circumstances of his defeat by a witcher more than twice his age.

“He doesn’t have enough of a sense of honor to use his sword. Maybe none of us do.”

Lambert already knows nothing he says will make a difference. Time might. But he doesn’t claim to know how much time he and Aiden have together. Maybe not enough time to convince Vesemir.

“He makes me….not lonely. That’s why I wanted him here, with me.” He hesitates, “with us.”

Picking up the training sword, Lambert returns it to its cradle before heading back inside.

—

Over breakfast Vesemir tells Aiden it would be better if they found winter boots that properly fit his feet.

—

Aiden’s skin is feverish against Lambert’s fingertips. The taut muscles of his abdomen contracting as Lambert skims his hands along his belly. Aiden is a little ticklish, just enough that he squirms.

“Quit that,” Aiden huffs. He drags the length of his prick back out of Lambert, far enough that only the head remains inside. Still, it’s enough for Lambert to feel stretched open, though not quite filled.

It’s a slow slide back in, Aiden dropping his head and letting the curtain of his black hair fall across Lambert’s chest. He thrusts again, this time with steady confidence. Part of Lambert wants to keep on pestering him. But a more significant feeling in his gut just wants to get off. 

Aiden finds his rhythm, snapping his hips to meet Lambert’s shallow thrusts in reply. There’s not much leverage to be had with Aiden on top of him, but he’s not one to lie there and take it, even if Aiden is the one giving him his prick.

Heat and moisture build between their bodies, a stickiness suffusing the air around them. Aiden drops his mouth to Lambert’s shoulder, kissing, biting, sucking, giving into every impulse except screaming.

Lambert takes himself in hand, though he can only manage a shaky grip. The slap of skin on skin is audible, echoing across the room. Moving from shoulder to neck, Aiden uses his teeth again, this time with more intent. His hips falter as he gets close, staying deep and grinding into Lambert’s hole.

He’s whispering secrets against Lambert’s skin, knowing full well that Lambert can hear him clear as any shout.

Aiden speaks of comfort, kinship, and love. Things that Lambert isn’t ready to admit aloud, no matter how quietly. This winter was meant to replace those words. Though he’s sure by now he’s made a mess of it.

Not that Aiden was right. Only Lambert was a bit wrong too.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for taking the time to read. Comments and kudos are always appreciated. Find me on [tumblr](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com)


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